The entire fix has been redone from scratch after an engine update to Unity 5.3
completely broke the previous version of the fix along with my unity scripts
due to major changes to the shader file format in Unity.
This version also updates the fix to use DirectX11 - if you have used a
previous version of the fix, you will need to remove the -force-d3d9 launch
option from Steam before installing this one.Fixed

Shadows

Halos

Automatic crosshair depth added

Footprints

Installation

If you have used a previous version of this fix, remove the launch option in
Steam if you used it (right click -> properties -> set launch options) and
remove the previous fix.

Extract zip file to ...\Steam\SteamApps\common\TheLongDark\

Press backslash after starting a new game, loading a new area or whenever
the convergence resets.

Keys

Backslash: Load recommended convergence preset

Known Issues

Mouse cursor depth cannot be adjusted

Notes

This is an early access game and the fix is likely to be broken by updates,
so be sure to check back regularly, and report any broken effects.

61 comments:

Would love some help.. I can't even get 3D Vision to recognize this game is on (no "this game is rated" text, glasses don't activate) Tried "always, only 3d progs, and only fullscreen 3d" under CP, and made sure its in fullscreen. alt tab, closed, alt enter.. nothing triggers 3D.

tested it with the CP, Outlast and WoW, and 3D is working.. just not for this game :(

It sounds like the fix isn't installed properly - the game runs in borderless window mode, so 3D won't activate without the fix (and the green text will never appear, with or without the fix). Double check the fix is installed in the right place - the DLL and ini file should be in the same directory as the game's executable.

In case the automatic profile switch isn't working, you might try using nvidia inspector to manually change it to the "3D-Hub Player" profile.

I haven't had a chance to test the latest update of the game yet (travelling), so it is also possible that they have changed something since the Unity 5 beta - I'll be able to check in a few days.

Great fix. Thank you so much. I love the game and in 3D it is stunning.

+++ I recognized one issue +++

I think they implemented some new lens flare in the buildings that render 2D.

+++Problems with the EA - no 3D vision problems - just for the record - I mentionned them already on Steam but the developers do not care ;)+++

Since the change to Unity 5 the grass looks a bit weird from far away, purple or double and unclear. But it has nothing to do with the 3D vision. Also there are some weird clipping errors, weird white lines. This has also nothing to do with the 3D vision. So we can hope they fix it soon.

I've updated the fix. Grass & clipping errors should be fixed again now (that particular problem was caused by a bug in my scripts and the Unity 5 update was the first time it's been hit so far), and I've added the lens grit and crosshair toggles back in.

I've also adapted the code I wrote for the auto-depth crosshair in Miasmata to Unity, so that's in now :)

For the 2D light shafts - are there any areas where it is particularly bad? Unfortunately it's the same effect as the light shafts in Dreamfall Chapters, which after spending 40+ hours on I've concluded is unfixable without changes to the C# code to pass the light source depth into the shaders (which we can't do in Helix mod... maybe other Unity modding techniques can help?) - the best I could do for now is add a toggle to disable the effect.

Thank you man. For me it looks all flawless now and the light shafts are also good and with you toggles very user friendly. Very good. Let's hope they bring soon some more content to this great game. mrorange

The latest update of the game switched to using DX11 by default - this means you will need to launch the game via the tld_dx9.bat in the game directory or add -force-d3d9 the the game's launch options to use this fix. I haven't checked the update for any other issues yet.

Very good fix again. Thank you for regularly updating the game. This is very much appreciated.The automatic crosshair is genius. I wonder if it is very difficult to include this in other games where not such a crosshair exists?mrorange

I'm working on adding the automatic crosshair to a few of my other fixes at the moment - focusing on Unity games first since I've already worked out the right method to scale the depth values, after that I'll look at UE3. It does tend to need a bit of tweaking for each game/engine, but in theory it should be possible to make it work on many games with a crosshair in a fixed position.

I don't know. just got the game. I installed it the way it is explaned here.Many shaders are not good in one eye. I don't know how to explane.... I didn't make the game and the fix. All i can say is that many shaders are not correct. The menu is okay now.

You can see how good it looks by DarkStarSword's pictures above. If you look at the startup screen for example, does it seem broken in your case, or is it later in the game? If you can post some screen shots that will help clarify.

I have a question, why are the letters in the game so weird?Most things looks good but when i want to read the text, i have to turn off 3D to read it without bringing my eyes all the way to my nose hahahahaEven with low convergence the text is unreadable. Did i do something wrong?Maybe good to know i started the game with -force-d3d9 so i know that is okay.Let me know thanks

Well, although it looks good in 3D, the game seems a bit laggy. So i had to stop the game when i stepped outside the house into the cold weather so adding 3D to this game really is a bottleneck.Even with a i5 processor and GTX 970 and 16 GB of ram.The only thing that moves in the game is the snow so unfortunatly i can not play this in 3D.Hope that will change when story mode comes out, but i guess this will not be the case.I will come back on that when the story mode is there.Thanks anyways guys

I see that v.325 is out. And i loved playing this in 3D, however, i played the v.325 with this fix and looks good, the only issues i see is with the shadows and that the menu/HUD is at screen depth, looks like they are at screen depth. Probably because they worked on their shaders. I hope you see time in fixing this.Thank you very much.

I just took a quick look at the breakages caused by the most recent update, and it is due to an engine update to Unity 5.3, which has a new asset file format which my scripts can only partially process at the moment. Overall this is actually a good thing since they stopped stripping headers out of the shaders, but there is some information I need from the asset files to fix it by script, so it will take me a little longer than usual to update the fix as I need to study the new file format first and adapt my scripts.

A bit of patience would go a long way - I've been working on the problem pretty much full time for the last couple of days, and I'm just about done. If you want to follow along with my progress, it's in the usual place: https://github.com/DarkStarSword/3d-fixes/commits/master

I have a question about the difference between DX9 and DX11 on games.What is the difference between the 2 versions and what does that do for 3D in games?Does DX11 speed up some FPS if we compare it with DX9? because DX11 is written for Windows 7/8Should we get some performance boost with DX11?

For our community the main difference is which modding tool we use to fix them - Helix Mod for DX9, 3DMigoto for DX11. These days 3DMigoto has matured quite a lot and is generally the better tool to use, so if a game supports both I'd go with DX11 (then again maybe I'm biased since I'm one of the 3DMigoto developers ;).

AAA DX11 games tend to need a bit more tweaking to get working in 3D Vision than AAA DX9 games did (mostly because of DX11 compute shaders, which are becoming more and more popular to use in the rendering pipeline), but for Unity there isn't much difference in terms of 3D support - both are broken pretty much equally.

Performance depends on the game/engine developer to optimise the game, and doesn't really matter which they target - a poorly optimised game will run like molasses no matter which they picked, and a well optimised game can run like butter on either.

For a developer the main attraction of DX11 is that it allows for more sophisticated effects and generally would look better than DX9 (but of course that depends on the game). For engines like Unity where you can choose either you will often notice some effects will only work in one or the other (e.g. in Firewatch the light shafts only work in DX11, and in The Forest the ground only works in DX9). I haven't done a side by side comparison of this game on DX9 and DX11 lately, but there are a total of 6 shaders in this game that only work in DX11, so there might be some difference.

If i start the game with this new fix with DX11, the game won't come to screen.I keep seeing my desktop while the music is playing.I have the v.332 of the game and even the -force-d3d11 option dont work.Do i overlook something?

ALT-Tab also does not switch to the game.I had a clean version of the game, no older 3D fix in it.I unzipped your files to the directory where the tld.exe is in.And i tried to start the game with the desktop icon.Through steam with -force-d3d11 instead of -force-d3d9I tried with a .bat file but all didn't work.Can't select the icons on my desktop aswell.

I'm pretty certain that it's related to Unity's broken Alt+Tab handling in full screen DX11 (a long standing bug in Unity), but I can never reproduce it consistently enough to see if there's anything we can do to work around it, but here are a few ideas I'd like you to try:

- It's possible something you are running might be interfering with the window management, so try closing everything you can before starting the game. It may also be worth rebooting, just in case.- Try changing full_screen to 2 in the d3dx.ini- Try uncommenting the width & height lines and set them to your monitor's native resolution. Make sure your desktop is also set at this resolution before launching the game.- Try uncommenting the hook=recommended line in the d3dx.ini- Try changing full_screen to 0 and uncommenting the toggle_full_screen line. Launch the game (it should be in borderless windowed mode), then press F7 followed by Alt+Enter to switch to exclusive full screen.- Try uncommenting the allow_windowcommands line

- Try changing full_screen to 2 in the d3dx.ini did not work- Try uncommenting the width & height lines (1920x1080) did not work- Try uncommenting the hook=recommended did not work- Try changing full_screen to 0 showed me the game but no 3D. even not after alt-enter and F7- Try uncommenting the allow_windowcommands did not work

Ok, i did some testing and seems that:comment out the full_screen line and uncommenting the toggle_full_screen line works.I did first ALT+Enter, then F7, then again ALT+Enter, then switch on the emiter.Then the game was in 3D. But i saw some issues with the green 3D info on the screen when i lower or higher the 3D. Its only viewable in 1 eye. Normal it is at screen depth and viewable in both eyes.Also the green text where u read, excelent, poor and stuff, has same issue. Only viewable for 1 eye.Maybe this is related to the issue? i don't know but i maybe share it hereAlso i noticed that some HUD objects like status bars changing size because of the crosshair depth. Which is kinda annoying, but that was with the DX9 version also.

Glad you have a workaround that doesn't involve rebooting every time :) At least that seems to confirm that it's to do with Unity's Alt+Tab bug, but for whatever reason that is triggering on launch for you. Unfortunately this will likely need the Unity engine developers to fix since it happens without our mods in any Unity game that uses DX11 exclusive mode full screen (our DX11 mods force that mode to enable 3D).

For me the green driver text in one eye during the intro video, but switches back to both eyes when the main menu loads - it's strange, but seemed harmless enough. Still, maybe it's a clue.

I might eventually look into improving the HUD some more, but it can be quite tricky to move different HUD elements to different depths, and it's not something I'll consider until the game comes out of early access since it's a lot of work to be undone whenever the game is updated. No promises though - HUDs can be a real PITA.

Well, rebooting the pc worked. But i must reboot the pc everytime this happens because it's happend again now.There are still a few issues.Some HUD items are changing size aswell because of the crosshair depth i guess.And i saw some effect on the sides of my screen, don't know yet what that is. Have to restart pc again to look again why it is there. :(

I followed all the advices you gave in the comment section. It's only switching to 3d when I press ctrl+T. Could you elaborate a little the automic profile switching please? Also, when I activate the 3d via ctrl+t I experience ghosting/crosstalk on trees and some rocks.

Try turn off and on your monitor. It did once helped for me. The monitor did not switch to 3D mode and causing some ghosting on things.The way for me to play this now in 3D i must do ALT+Enter, then F7, then again ALT+Enter.Thats assuming the monitor is in 3D mode:)

Any information if this works on Windows 8.1 ??After installing Windows 8.1 the emitter just stops after starting the game.I installed Windows 8.1 because i read that it is better then Windows 7 but i must say, Windows 8.1 is so annoying, sound is bad, lost all games and apps while they said i keep everything. But aside from that, it's also destroyed playing games in 3D.So any information on this??? thanks

Seems that the newest drivers also broke this fix.Bleeghh NVidia , what you are doing to me everytime......I just posted on Far Cry 4 that it stopped working good, so seems same with this game:(

Guess it's the new driver from NVidia. I've had it with this 3D shitEvery time i want to play a game in 3D it always give problems, or it is the game, or it is a driver or it is something else. Halleluja tech in 2016.

Best to get off the update treadmill. Newer software is rarely better than what you were running. If you just want to play and stop jacking with stuff, then stop updating all the pieces. It's not better, it's just different.

If you are required to update for some other reason, you can setup a dual boot for known good working scenarios, and boot to that. Again, unless you enjoy jacking around with stuff, don't update the OS, or the Drivers, and make sure you have the working version of the game backed up for a restore.

Windows 10 is bad for gaming in 3D. Forced updates mean you can be broken at anytime, on the whim of Microsoft. You have to decide if you care more about the OS than playing in 3D.

Well, 2017 is here. New TLD updates, NVIDIA drivers etc...I have Windows 10, GTX 1060 (6GB) and I wanna thank you mnuch to have the opportunity to see Long Dark in stereoscopic 3D. Very nice.

I usually go to the UI (backpack, eating, clothing, sleeping) and the UI and HUD are basically 2D, which is always the problem. Same with Skyrim and so on. But here the backapck objects are 3D and text 2D, so you get very improper view. Kind of frustrating.Anyway, the feeling was great time...

I made a fix with the fantastic Darkstarsword's Unity5 template, I disabled Sun's shadows and made a key toggle for inside of buildings because shadows inside of buildings are broken too, but with low separation and high convergence the game runs good. I am waiting for a perfect fix but meanwhile I use mine. I don't know how to upload here so if anyone wants it just tell me here and I make a google's drive link. ;)